Life of a California IT Refugee, currently in TX

Homeward Bound?

2005-02-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

In a rather ironic twist of fate my fiance's mother just accepted a job back in california. Making things even more ironic, she'll be living about half an hour away from my parents. Further adding to the bizarreness is the fact that my mother-in-law-to-be always swore she would never move to california... never ever ever... She's one of those people who firmly believes California is just gonna up and fall into the ocean one of these days. Luckily the job was a big enough promotion for her to brave the potential danger. Plus she's a sweet lady, and I think she knows our heart is really in California...

Its wierd the strange ways god works sometimes, and how things have to go full circle. Why we had to move to Texas to get back on our feet, only to move back to Cali, I'll never understand. I've decided i'm about 70/30 on the whole idea of moving back to Cali. 70% excited about getting back, and 30% worried about the job market and cost of living. One thing is for sure I'm 100% happy to be leaving Texas.

As of right now the goal is to be in California in about 11 months.... Definitely sooner if a job becomes available. I'm trying to get on as a developer at the company my gf works at.... Ironically I got her the job there, so nows she's repaying the favor and trying to get me on board. Again, its wierd how things come full circle. Anyhow I'm really keeping my fingers crossed because if it all worked out, she and I would both be able to telecommute and couldlive almost anywhere in Northern California.

It would be so nice to be living up in the mountains again. Last time we had the chance to live up there, we were trying to get our business off the ground, which was a long tough process, culminating in us being rear ended and sustaining injuries, and having no health insurance... 4 months later and 10+ grand in debt we ended up in Texas trying to get back on our feet - It'd be so wonderful to get a chance to do it all over again, only this time with steady income, health insurance, and way less stress.

Anyhow I'm very excited about the possibilities and hope that things continue to work out.... I have the feeling at this point though, enough things have been set in motion and one way or another we're getting back there....

Holiday Madness

2005-01-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

My blog has long gone unattended to, for which I apologize...The holidays snuck up on me this year, and it seems i've been trying to catch up ever since. About a month before Christmas, someone went into a bank in California, filled out a deposit slip, and withdrew several hundred from my account.. The end result was, after I filed a complaint, my ATM card was turned off while I was traveling, and I had no access to my money. Fun stuff - Only now am I begining to get the rest of things sorted out, direct deposits had to be updated, anything that had previously been setup to automatically pull from my account, all in all it was a wonderful experience, especially considering the retardation I encountered when dealing with my bank (Washington Mutual). Customer service ain't what it used to be, that is for sure.

At work, the close of the business year has brought an onslot of sales people gone crazy. Everyone pushing, and selling, and over promising in the hopes of being able to bill every possible penny they can before the year is over. Normally I wouldn't care about a large amount of work but I"m holding a grudge that I didn't receive a Christmas bonus - It just seems rather pathetic to me that a prospering company can't pony up a little bit of cash as a way of saying thanks. This year we didn't even have a true christmas party, just a small get together at the office - I know I'm being petty because I make good money and shouldn't complain, but the difference between what I make, and how much money I make them is starting to get to me.

Anyhow.....things are busy but I'm hanging in there. The wedding is slowly getting closer, which is exciting. I think we're both in sort of a limbo right now because we don't want to make too many changes before we've tied the knot. It'd be good to start our married life off on solid ground - Not inbetween jobs, or in the process of moving, or anything like that. I'm hoping for a good solid 6 months of stability once we're married, after that its anyones guess ;p

Home Court Advantage

2004-11-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

Of course the big thing on my mind these days is the election. I was having nightmares of 4 more years of Bush in the days leading up to the election - Of course now we know that my nightmares have come true.

This election hurts on a lot on many different levels. Either the american people are incredibley easily decieved, or they agree with the utter madness that has been perpetrated thus far by the current president and his cabinent. Either way, it makes it difficult to look my fellow americans in the eyes and have any respect for them. That being said, my loathing of the midwest is at an all time high. Each state on the map that turned red on election day was yet another reinforcement that this place is not my home, it will never be my home. The values of the people here I will never understand, and this part of the country feels like it is so full of duality, an outsider will never be able to decipher it.

I do find it so amazing that both washington and new york went Democrat. The only two places in the continental US that have been victims of foriegn terrorism in over a century. They didn't buy the fear and lies... Why did middle america?

Regardless of what has happened, I think the next 4 years will be monumental in dictating the pace of our march towards the end. Iraq will get worse, Osama will remain at large, the draft will be instituted, the number of middle class households will decrease, and american jobs will continue to be outsourced. It will be business as usual, and what ends up being sold, will never profit the common people.

My only hope is that I'll be out of this State, before Bush is out of the whitehouse. The novelty of Texas has worn off, and I've realized I'll never be welcome, or ever fit in here. I long for mountains, and nature, and people who give a fuck about the world - Even when caring requires them to sacrifice a little of themselves. Most of all I want to be in a place where the external world reflects the beauty of what lies inside the people who live there.

I'm buying an emergency ticket back to California tonight and will hopefully be back there for at least a few days before the end of the month. One day I'm taking that trip and not coming back. What a happy day that will be.

Dreams of the Bubble

2004-09-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article this morning called "What the Bubble Got Right." I think too often people look at the whole silicon valley as a sort failed experiment. There has been a nasty knee jerk reaction since the bubble burst, and I many ways I think most business have taken a step backwards. Anyhow loving all that is nerd culture, I really liked this quote:

" If you're a nerd, you can understand how important clothes are by asking yourself how you'd feel about a company that made you wear a suit and tie to work. The idea sounds horrible, doesn't it? In fact, horrible far out of proportion to the mere discomfort of wearing such clothes. A company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it.

And what would be wrong would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the quality of one's ideas. That's the problem with formality. Dressing up is not so much bad in itself. The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as suits."

I contemplated forwarding this piece of logic onto my boss, but decided against it. Informality is definitely something I miss about the west coast. I think "uniforms" at a fundemental level thwart creativity. If one isn't allowed the freedom to dress as they see fit, can you really expect said employee to feel free to think outside the box? Maybe you can, but that logic has always defied me. I see customers on a bi-monthly or so basis, but as always here I am, sitting in my cube, writing code, all dressed up and no place to go. Now that I think about it, on days like this, I"m not quite sure who I'm supposed to be trying to impress with my attire. Whomever it is, I get the eerie feeling its not working....

My first blog visitors & My Birthday

2004-09-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

I received my first official visitor from the Texafornia website they were even nice enough to add a link to my blog on their page. Which reminds me, if you stop by, let me know and leave me a comment or two. I think it would be nice if blogger recorded stats for your blog, such as how many times your page has been visited. If the blogger folks ever read this, consider that an official feature request.

This weekend was my birthday, my second one celebrated in Texas. Hard sometimes to believe i'm into my second year in Texas, the time has seemed to go by so fast... All in all it was a good birthday, my fiance' cooked, and put some love and effort into making the day special.

I do however have some beef with my friends. I didn't recieve any calls on my birthday, which if you ask me if pretty lame. I know people get busy, and forget, and all that jazz, but at a certain point it starts to get old. I mean granted, I'm not terribley fond of talking to people on the phone, I"d much rather go hang out with them, but unfortunately that isn't a possibility when your 2,000 miles apart. So I thought friends were supposed to just suck it up, and do whatever they need to.

If people just forgot my birthday, I could totally accept that, but beyond the birthday, no one really seems to be putting furth much effort to keep in touch. I dunno, I've known all my friends for over 10 years, so I was just under the impression it was worth a little effort to keep up with each others lives.

What makes things even worse is that most of my friends are going to be in our upcoming wedding. I just thought the people who stood by my side during the wedding would be a little bit more involved in my life. I'm doubting I'll get a bachelor party, and I'm doubting having them involved is really going to be that great of an experience. Honestly at this point I sort of wish we could cut all the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Then again, is there anyway to do that remotely tactfully?

Anyhow, I'm officially one year older. My boss had no idea it was my birthday, neither did anyone else, but I did however recieve the corporate automated birthday card via mail. So generous this company is. I dunno, I've directly made them around $250,000 in profit this year, even after you take out my salary, and give them a very generous allowance for overhead. Maybe someday Corporate america will realize a small gesture goes a long way towards generating good will, in the meantime they can keep their automated birthday cards because honestly nothing pisses me off more then a half assed attempt at keeping employees happy -

Just gotta keep telling myself, I'm buying time until I can get the hell outta here.....

Texifornians?

2004-09-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

I found out today that my kind officially have a title... Aparently I am a texifornian. A Californian living in Texas. Amazing that this is a common enough phenomenon to garner its own special title. If I had my say in it, I'd rather be a Cali-texan or Cal-exan or something along those lines. I guess I will take what I can get in the recognition department.

I have noticed since my time here, there is a big influx of people into the metroplex from out of state. I work with 4-5 people who recently moved here from California, even ran into one of them in the Sacramento airport on my last trip. This doesn't seem to make the locals very happy, they are already complaining about us Driving up the cost of real estate... regardless I think this is a trend that is going to continue. The reality is that for most people, and business, it makes sense to move to the most hospitable economy available (thus outsourcing). The benefits of being on either of the coasts at this point are pretty marginal. In the case of california, I think doing business there is actually a liability. I read a study the other day that between 2001 and 2003 the number of tech jobs in SF dropped by 49%.

Its good to know, that it just wasn't me that was underemployed... Then again, its sort of sad, a 49% drop in jobs leaves a lot of ground to make up in order to get back to square one. I highly doubt the bay area will ever completely recover, especially with the horror of the afore mentioned outsourcing.

Its sad that a place as beautiful as California can be in such a state of economic disrepair. I mean when the governor has to put up billboards in other states to try and recruit new businesses, you know things are bad. I could rant about the causes of this, and the ridiculous mismanagement of money, the fleecing of the common people, and the unequal distribution of wealth....but I'll let it go.... for now.

Onward...

2004-09-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

So although Texas may be the object of many complaints on my part there are some rather good things about this state. Cost of living is ridiculously cheap, the job market is decent, and for technology, the expectations are rather low... When I left california employers wanted ridiculous qualifications - In texas, they are just happy if I can write some ASP and pull data from SQL. Its nice to be ahead of the curve for once, and not have to worry about making sure to stay ontop of every technological bandwagon that rambles by.

By far the majority of my Texas happiness comes from work. I work for a small consulting company and am the only web developer/programmer which is really awesome. Most of the time I'm off in my own little world, writing code, and doing my thing. Since I'm the only person who really has any idea of what I'm doing, I don't have to worry about micro-management, code reviews, or getting approval. I just do what needs to be done, and then move on to the next project. All in all its a great position to be in. I've had to deal with other people's shitty code making my life hell in the past, so its nice to be able to write clean code and then not have to worry about it again.

As with any job, its not perfect, but for a job in IT its pretty damn good. Now if only I could somehow take this job and move it to the west coast, say Oregon, it'd be heavenly...

First Post...

2004-09-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

I'm moving up on my one year anniversary of coming to Texas. Very strange to be transplanted from a place like California, right into the heart of the beast. California is great, I'm convinced its one of the most amazing places on this earth, but the reality is, the bubble burst, the economy went to crap, and the housing market kept getting more expensive. At a certain point you have to stop humping the dream that once again nerds will rule the earth, stock options will rain down from on high, and silicon valley will again become the mecca it once was.

So after a year and a half of being unemployed, running a barely succesful business on the side, and trying to find a real job, the fiance and I bit the bullet and began our exodus to Dallas.

What a long strange trip that was, months of getting rid of all our non essential possesions, the invetiable sadness of packing, saying goodbye, and of course the culmination - driving through the desert, our poor subaru chugging along towing a Uhual trailer. As the days went by, things got flatter, almost duller, and eventually we arrived in Dallas. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, imagine a world as flat as a pancake, for the most part covered in concrete, with absolutely no trees over 30 feet- That in a nutshell is the metroplex - One of my favorite sayings about Texas is, "its so flat you can watch your dog run away for 3 days" -

Regardless of the lack natural beauty, there are some pretty cool things about Texas. I'll get into those later, for now, its back to the grindstone...